IT giant IBM closed its third quarter 2007 September 30 with turnover up by seven percent compared to the same period last year. Income in the third quarter rose by six percent to around US$ 2.4 billion.

IBMs third quarter revenues totalled US$ 24.1 billion, or US$ 1.68 per share. Services were the major growth areas: total global services rose by 14 percent, the biggest increase for four years. Global business services rose by 16 percent to US$ 4.6 billion, with double figure growth in global technology services by 13 percent to US$ 9.1 billion as IBM sold more products than previously to existing customers.

From a geographic point of view, turnover in the America’s region accounted for US$ 10.2 billion - an increase of 4 percent, followed by the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) up 11 percent to US$ 8.1 billion, and Asia-Pacific revenues which increased by 9 percent to US$ 4.9 billion.

In contrast to this, turnover was down by approximately 10 percent to US$ 4.9 billion in IBM’s Systems and Technology segment with System p UNIX servers System x servers selling strongly and up by six percent. Z systems and i systems, where turnover dropped by 31 and 21 percent respectively, were the biggest losers. IBM’s quarterly earnings report has more details.